


The Westchester Samba

by FullmetalChords



Series: let's go steal an ice rink [2]
Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Thieves, Con Artists, Fluff and Angst, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Names, all about burying your past but in a healthy and productive way, also they pretend they're from boston at one point
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-03
Updated: 2017-06-03
Packaged: 2018-11-08 10:30:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,268
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11079732
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FullmetalChords/pseuds/FullmetalChords
Summary: Victor knew a lot of things about his fiancé.He knew that he loved dogs, especially poodles. He knew that he was allergic to dairy and had a special fondness for a Japanese dish called katsudon. He knew that he’d taken dance lessons when he was young, and that he’d thought of going pro before realizing that art theft was a lot more lucrative. He knew every mole, every scar, every stretch mark on his body, and had spent considerable time learning and worshipping each one. He knew his fears, and he knew his dreams.He did not, however, know his name.--Con artist Yuuri refuses to tell his new partner Victor what his real name is. Drama and shenanigans ensue, not in that order.





	The Westchester Samba

**Author's Note:**

  * For [spookyfoot](https://archiveofourown.org/users/spookyfoot/gifts).



> me: "hey meg you should probably finish writing that one heist you started before doing any more side bits in this universe"  
> me: *cranks out a 5.5k monstrosity*
> 
> This slots into a more extensive universe in which Yuuri is a world-class grifter and Victor is a former insurance investigator who became a thief FOR LOVE. It will probably make a lot more sense if you've read my fic ["The Genevan Paso Doble"](http://archiveofourown.org/works/10866552) before diving into this. Go ahead. I'll wait.

Victor knew a lot of things about his fiancé.

He knew that he loved dogs, especially poodles. He knew that he was allergic to dairy and had a special fondness for a Japanese dish called katsudon. He knew that he’d taken dance lessons when he was young, and that he’d thought of going pro before realizing that art theft was a lot more lucrative. He knew every mole, every scar, every stretch mark on his body, and had spent considerable time learning and worshipping each one. He knew his fears, and he knew his dreams.

He did not, however, know his name.

 

\--

 

It had all started to go south when he first introduced Yuuri to the rest of the team.

“Everyone,” Victor had announced upon their arrival in Taipei, Will Smithing in Yuuri’s direction, “I’ve found our grifter.”

“Hi,” Yuuri had said, waving shyly.

Otabek and Yuri had exchanged what Victor would come to know as The Yuri And Otabek Look.

“ _This_ is your idea of a confidence man?” Yuri demanded, as though Yuuri wasn’t even there. “Where did you find this guy? He doesn’t look like he could con the candy away from a baby!”

“Nice to meet you,” Otabek had said neutrally to Yuuri.

 _“Beka!_ You’re supposed to back me up!”

“What’s going on?” Phichit had said, bursting out of his office wearing some sort of LED lamp on his head, the guts of a cell phone in his hands. “I’m in the middle of a delicate—“ He’d stopped dead upon seeing Yuuri, a grin spreading across his face. “ _Chip haai la!_ Ryoma?! What are you doing here?”

“Uh… it’s Yuuri,” Yuuri had corrected, cheeks coloring. “Good to see you again, Phichit.”

 _Ryoma_. Victor didn’t mind so much knowing that Phichit had known Yuuri before. He _did_ mind the reminder that Yuuri had a habit of going by fake names.

“Yuuri?!” Yuri Plisetsky was utterly furious, pointing accusingly at the team’s newest member. “Oh, no. You pick a different alias _right now_ , new guy. We’ve only got room for one Yuri on this crew.”

“Ah, no, that’ll be too confusing,” Victor said distantly. Then he beamed, pointing at their resident thief. “I know! We’ll call you ‘Yurio’!”

“You _will not!_ ” Yurio had all but shrieked, as Phichit guffawed and Otabek hummed thoughtfully. “Make him be Yurio! I was here first!”

“But I’ve known him longer,” Victor said, unable to hide his fondness as he looked at Yuuri. The three of them blinked, then Yurio made a face.

“Great,” he grumbled. “Your little _boyfriend_ had better not get in the way, Nikiforov.”

“Give him more credit than that,” Victor had breezed, placing a hand on the small of Yuuri’s back. “Come, let me show you around.”

“Who the hell does the new guy think he is?” Yurio grumbled as he and Yuuri rounded the corner.

“The guy who stole _The Birth of Venus,_ is who,” Phichit told them. “The Uffizi has a forgery on display.”

Otabek whistled, clearly impressed.

 

\--

 

“‘Yuuri’ is your real name, right?”

They’d spent the first day, and half the night, planning their first con together. But now that they weren’t reviewing schematics or fleshing out aliases, Victor was back to obsessing about Yuuri’s name.

He kept thinking about the night in Barcelona when he and Yuuri had had their first real connection. Before that time, Victor knew him simply as ‘Eros,’ a nickname that Victor had given him himself when Yuuri refused to share anything about himself. But in Barcelona — their first date, their first kiss, words Yuuri had breathed across his skin in a dark alleyway as Victor had held him for the first time. _Call me Yuuri_ , he’d said.

Not “my name is Yuuri”.

He was in bed with the man now, Yuuri’s arms draped over Victor’s middle, a grumpy breath huffing over the back of Victor’s neck.

“What’s in a name,” Yuuri mumbled philosophically in response to Victor’s question, already half-asleep. Victor felt the tip of Yuuri’s nose nudge the nape of his neck. “Go to sleep, Victor.”

Well, that just made him sulk even harder. He’d been with Yuuri nearly two years now! They were going to get married! Or at least Victor thought they were. Maybe that was another talk they needed to have.

“You can tell me,” Victor said after stewing for several minutes. “I won’t tell the others, I promise.”

Still, there was silence. Victor was about to turn over and demand an answer when he heard a faint snore rumbling from deep in Yuuri’s chest.

“That’s not fair,” he grumbled to himself, turning back to face the wall. Still,he reached down to lace his fingers with Yuuri’s, their rings pressing together as Yuuri sighed in his sleep and pulled Victor closer.

Totally, completely unfair.

 

\--

 

"You told YURIO?!"

A betrayal of the worst kind. Victor might never recover. 

"Relax," Yuuri sighed, walking alongside Victor in the warehouse district, dragging a carryon suitcase behind him. "You're reading too much into it." 

"I don't see how," Victor sniffed, "when the love of my life still hasn't told me his name after knowing him for five years, but he tells some nobody catburglar after knowing him for _three days_.”

"Um, I'm sorry," came an irate voice in his ear, "but _who’s_ a nobody catburglar?!" Victor winced, digging at his earpiece with the tip of his pinky. He still wasn't used to the others being able to overhear his every word on a job.

"It doesn't mean anything." Yuuri sounded long-suffering as they rounded a corner. “He was still grumping around about us having the same name, so I just… reassured him he’s the team’s ‘real Yuri’.”

"That's not fair." Victor knew he was whining, but he couldn't help it! Yuuri was being so mean to him! "If he knows, why can't I?"

"If you really want to know, then just ask him," Yuuri muttered. Then his whole demeanor shifted. "Now, honey, I _know_ we parked around here somewhere," he said loudly, rounding his vowels so he sounded like he was from Boston. 

"I told ya," Victor shot back, falling into a similar character, "we shoulda just called an Uber from the station!"

"Excuse me!" A security guard ran into their path. "This is a restricted area."

"And now look what you've done, Roger," Victor sighed, putting his hands on his hips. "You've gotten us lost!"

"Maybe if you didn't nag me every five seconds I'd be able to think!" Yuuri turned to the guard. "Have you seen a blue Volvo around here, 2002, has a bumper sticker that just says "ush Chen 20" because _somebody_ peeled off half the sticker when we went into Eye-raq?"

"Listen to this," Victor scoffed, appealing to the guard. "I give him the best years of my life, and for what? Not a moment's peace, not in fifteen years, never does what needs done..."

"I just wanted one weekend," Yuuri cut in over him, also talking to the guard, "two nights alone, no kids, no nothing, and he can't even find the lousy motel that was the cheapest he could find on Yelp. This how you do me, Ed? This your idea of romance?" Victor shouted wordlessly at Yuuri in frustration, and Yuuri only groaned in reply. The poor security guard looked between them, clearly overwhelmed. 

Which was exactly what they'd wanted. 

The arm of the guard's booth shattered behind them as a familiar black van barreled through it. "Hey!" shouted the guard, reaching for the gun on his belt, but Yuuri and Victor had already dashed for the opposite side of the road, dragging their suitcases behind them. "S-stop!" 

The van halted abruptly, the door sliding open. 

"Get in!" Otabek shouted, still holding the door, and Victor and Yuuri jumped in, leaving their props behind.

"Hold onto something!" Phichit yelled gleefully from the driver's seat, and they peeled down the street, Otabek slamming the door shut. 

After he'd caught his breath, Victor turned back to Yuuri. 

"I don't _want_ Yurio to tell me your name," he said. "I'd rather hear it from you."

“Whatever the hell’s going on with you two, leave me out of it,” Yuri snapped from the passenger’s seat. Yuuri just sighed.

 

—

 

“Hey, Eric.”

Yuuri kept his head buried in his laptop, frowning as he squinted at the screen.

“Sousuke.”

Still nothing. Victor thumbed through his copy of _1001 Baby Names_ , trying to decide whether to use a Japanese or English name next. Yuuri’s accent was still impossible to place, after all these years.

“Haruto?” Yuuri didn’t even flinch. “Jacob. Daniel. Seito? Keith. Sora. Riku.”

“My name isn’t in _Kingdom Hearts_ ,” Yuuri muttered, clicking something on his laptop.

“So ‘Donald’ and ‘Goofy’ are also out of the question, huh,” Victor said, leaning forward with a twinkle in his eye. Yuuri wasn’t even looking.

“Just tell me!” Victor pled, scooting his chair closer to Yuuri’s. He caressed the back of his lover’s neck, hoping that might make him more receptive. “I don’t know why you’re making such a big deal out of it…”

“Victor, I’d really love to get into this with you right now,” Yuuri snapped, making Victor jerk his hand away in surprise, “but in order to con our mark out of several ill-gotten million dollars, I have to be able to feasibly pass as the world’s foremost expert on Australian box jellyfish by tomorrow morning, and all of this? Is _not. Helping_.”

Victor knew he was right, knew his own con hinged on Yuuri being able to sell the character he’d created a need for.

He sulked anyway.

“Good luck with the studying then, Daichi,” he said, pouting as he got to his feet. “Sorry for being such an imposition.”

Yuuri said nothing as Victor left the conference room.

 

—

 

“I can’t believe you did that.”

“Yuuri,” Phichit said, looking worried as his eyes darted back and forth between Yuuri and Victor, “it’s _fine_. It worked out, and…”

Yuuri ignored him.

“You _hypnotized_ Phichit?” he spat at Victor, looking absolutely disgusted. “You fucking hypnotized our hacker?”

“Neurolinguistic programming,” Victor defended, just as angry, “isn’t _hypnosis,_ Yuuri. It’s an advanced method of persuasion—“

“—you bloody brainwashed him, is what you did—“

“—and _you taught me how to do it!”_ They were all but shouting over each other. “I did what I had to, Yuuri, for the con to work! That’s what I’m here for! That’s my _job!_ Would you be giving Otabek this hard a time if he broke a guy’s neck while trying to protect us?”

“Leave me out of this,” Otabek said, looking uncomfortable. Yurio was pale beside him. Victor’s Yuuri, meanwhile, was practically incandescent.

“Don’t ever do that shit again, Victor,” he all but snarled in his direction. “I mean it. You don’t con your own crew. Not _ever_.”

Victor couldn’t help laughing hollowly at that.

“You really think you have a leg to stand on, darling?” he fired back.

“What is _that_ supposed to mean?” Yuuri’s voice was edging on dangerous. Victor was barely aware of Otabek taking the other two by the forearms and dragging them out of the room, as if diving for cover. Good. This didn’t involve them.

“I am _talking_ , ‘Yuuri’, about how despite everything we’ve been through, you still _refuse_ to be honest with me!”

Yuuri stopped, going pale, and Victor stepped closer, looming over him. He didn’t dare touch him, not when he was this angry, but his hands shook at his sides.

“Five years since we met,” he said, lowering his voice. “Two, since the first night we shared. I uprooted my _whole_ _life_ for you, Yuuri. I’m breaking God knows how many laws for you. All of this?” He gestured around their expansive offices, with the dark wood floors and sleek modern decor. “I built this office, _for you_. For a chance to have a life with you.”

Yuuri seemed temporarily rendered speechless.

“I never asked you to do any of that,” he finally said. He seemed to be struggling with the weight of something.

“You did.” Victor’s gaze drifted, unconsciously, to the gold ring Yuuri still wore on his right hand. “When you asked me to marry you.”

It hadn’t been a promise spoken in words, but they’d both understood it. Victor knew they had. Knew they still did. Yuuri’s lip trembled, once, his eyes growing brighter, but he still said nothing.

“I’m in love with you,” Victor said. He still didn’t reach for Yuuri, but their eyes were locked together, Victor searching for answers in their darkness. “I’d give my _life_ for you. And you won’t even give me your name.”

Yuuri bowed his head, tears spilling over as he shut his eyes. Victor tried to stay strong in the face of those tears because he was _right_ , no matter how much it hurt him to make Yuuri cry.

“I’ve told you a hundred times, Victor,” he pled, and Victor’s resolve almost shattered in the face of how wrecked his fiancé looked, his face all red and blotchy already. God, it was always so devastating when he cried. “It doesn’t _matter_. Why can’t you just let it go?”

Victor frowned. Unflinching.

“Because, my dear,” he said, taking a step back. “After all these years, after everything I’ve done for you… I still can’t believe you don’t trust me at least that much.”

He walked out of the office, leaving Yuuri crying behind him.

 

—

 

He’d meant to make up with Yuuri.

Really, he had.

It had all been a spot of bad luck that that was the moment Christophe Giacometti chose to show up in the bar across the street from their offices.

Chris, Victor’s old friend and coworker from ISU. Chris, who had something of a reputation for his relentlessness in pursuing thieves, regardless of whether or not they’d wronged the company he worked for.

Chris, who had a thick file with Yuuri’s picture.

He greeted Victor like an old friend, telling him that the notorious con artist Hideyoshi Nagachika — one of Yuuri’s many aliases — had recently been spotted in the area. Chris had had a three-year-old score to settle with Yuuri after the latter had stolen several of the crown jewels of Bavaria.

The threat to Yuuri’s life and freedom immediately superseded any spat they were currently having.

Too quickly, the situation deteriorated until Victor’s thoughts were wholly consumed with finding a way to get five internationally-wanted thieves and a poodle out of Taiwan alive. His earlier fight with Yuuri was the last thing on his mind as he and Otabek crawled into the belly of a passenger jet headed for Istanbul, about to make their roundabout way to their rendezvous point in southern Japan.

But then, without so much as a warning sound, an Interpol sniper’s bullet hit him, and all of a sudden his fight with Yuuri was all Victor could think about.

“Victor, _no!!”_

The scream came from a luggage transport vehicle across the tarmac — the last place Victor had seen Yuuri — and before Victor could do more than register the cry, darkness and silence swallowed him and Otabek up as they were sealed inside the hold. Victor collapsed, delirious with pain, vaguely aware of Otabek kneeling over him, shaking him, calling his name.

The pain, the tacky feeling of his own blood blossoming across his chest, was nothing compared to the overwhelming fear that Yuuri’s scream had given away his position, drawing the police — or worse, the sniper — to find him, too.

If Victor had been alone, or with anyone but Otabek, Victor would have died. He knew that. He would have bled out in the cargo hold of this passenger jet, his body discovered by unlucky airline workers twelve hours later. As it was, Otabek was all too used to dealing with bullet wounds, and though the situation was far from ideal, he made do, snapping into action as quickly as he could. The bullet had lodged in the meat of Victor’s shoulder — opposite the one he’d shot Yuuri in the second time they met, he reflected grimly as Otabek performed field surgery with a pair of nail tweezers and a bottle of duty-free vodka. It might have been almost poetic, if it hadn’t been so goddamn painful.

“I’m sorry,” Otabek kept muttering to him while stitching up the wound using a sewing kit he’d dug out of someone’s suitcase. “I’m so sorry.” Victor knew he’d been apologizing for not doing his job, for not checking the perimeter before leaving him unexposed on the tarmac. It was a rare slip for Otabek, one Victor was already sure would never happen again.

But the haze of pain in his mind made him only picture Yuuri, and the cry of anguish that had been the last he’d heard of Yuuri before he’d been whisked away. _I’m sorry. I’m so sorry_. Would he ever get a chance to tell Yuuri that in person?

They landed in Istanbul, and immediately boarded a train to Athens, then another plane to Nairobi, then Dubai, then Almaty, then Seoul, using different IDs for every leg. They arrived, disheveled and starving, in Fukuoka four days after abandoning Taipei, Phichit already there with train tickets and a safehouse in place.

“Makka and the Yuris arrived safe yesterday,” he said, and Victor felt himself sag in relief. “Victor, Yuuri’s been a wreck. He said you were—“

“I was,” Victor said. He’d been bandaged with the best Otabek could dig out of business-class luggage. He’d been popping Tylenol like candy for four days. He desperately needed a shower. “Take me to Yuuri.”

 

—

 

The other Yuri, funnily enough, was the first to run out when they arrived at the safehouse, a local ryokan that Phichit told him was called Yu-topia Katsuki. Victor was nearly knocked backward by the force of the young man’s embrace, which was much too tight, almost violent.

“Don’t _fucking_ do that again, old man,” he growled, fist knocking several times in succession against Victor’s good shoulder. “Don’t _ever_ do that again, you hear me?”

Victor couldn’t find the strength, nor the heart, to tease him even a little, similarly relieved to see their youngest team member was safe. “I won’t,” he said, patting Yuri’s head uneasily, the same way he might Makkachin. “I won’t, Yuri. I’m sorry.”

“Idiot,” Yuri sniffled before practically tackling him again.

Over Yuri’s shoulder he saw the other Yuuri in the doorway, wearing forest green robes that were almost pajama-like in their looseness. Yuuri was, indeed, a mess, with dark circles under his eyes and hair sticking up in jagged clumps. Victor recognized it as remnants of Yuuri’s nervous habit of tugging at his hair when his anxiety overwhelmed him. He looked like he hadn’t slept in days.

“Yuuri,” he breathed, and Plisetsky immediately let go, somehow knowing that he wasn’t the one being addressed. Victor and Yuuri moved toward one another like magnets, Victor’s only conscious thought being _he’s here, he’s_ safe—

…and then his exhaustion finally got the better of him, causing him to collapse in Yuuri’s arms.

 

—

 

It was almost a week before Victor had his strength back. Yuuri had brought in a real doctor to look at his wound, paying the woman triple her going rate in order to buy her discretion. Victor had been shot before — by Yuuri, as a matter of fact, back in the days before they’d really known each other — but this one had been much worse than the first, leaving him helpless and bedridden for days on end.

Yuuri never left his side.

“We’re safe here,” he kept repeating. Victor wasn’t sure if it was for his sake or Yuuri’s own. “Otabek is monitoring the perimeter, Phichit sent up some false flags in other parts of the world. Yuri even _bought_ this place, did you know? Paid the old owners at least twice what it’s worth, and he’s letting them stay on to keep running it.”

“Worried they’ll sell us out?” Victor mumbled, eyes closed and face pressed against Yuuri’s hip. Yuuri was sitting up, stroking his hair, while Victor drifted in and out of consciousness, shaking with a low-grade fever.

“No.” Yuuri’s cool fingers swept Victor’s bangs back from his face, over and over. It was soothing, like the tides of the nearby sea. “They’re good people, an older married couple. They… they remind me of my parents, a little.”

There was a large part of Victor that wanted nothing more than to believe every word out of Yuuri’s mouth, to trust him. It was just that seed of doubt that remained, poisoning every interaction they had, warping Victor’s world even further.

“Victor,” Yuuri continued. “Once you’ve recovered, I want to show you something.”

“Okay,” Victor said, and gave himself over to sleep once more.

 

—

 

Of all of them, Makkachin always had been the most adaptable.

The poodle never seemed to mind whether they were in Russia, or Taiwan, or the Gobi Desert, or atop a glacier. He even seemed to enjoy it when the team needed him for a con, whether Yuuri needed a pretend seeing-eye dog or Phichit needed to get into a dog park to sweet-talk a mark’s petsitter. Makkachin was almost always perfectly happy as long as he got plenty of attention and treats.

Victor’s dog was a little more subdued the morning the three of them took an early train to a small town called Karatsu about three hours away. It, too, was a seaside town built on a hill, and they climbed it together, Yuuri supporting Victor’s weight as he took unsteady steps forward. Victor had come with Yuuri this morning with no idea what to expect.

He still wasn’t sure what to expect when they reached the top of the small hill.

It was a cemetery. Or at least, Victor was pretty sure it was one. There were squat pillars of white marble, some of them stacked nearly three meters high while others were much lower to the ground. They were packed in close together, with niches for incense and vases with sprigs of star anise. Symbols in kanji were carved into them, some painted red while others were left alone.

Victor turned to Yuuri, unsure of why he’d been brought here. Yuuri’s eyes were shining as he took in the sight of the cemetery, in that way he had when he was searching for answers.

“Did you bring me here for a lecture on my mortality?” he said lightly, almost teasing. “Because I assure you, I’m well aware by now.” He lifted his bad arm in its sling, wincing with the fresh stab of pain.

Yuuri looked over at Victor, seeming surprised by the question.

“No,” he said. “After the week we’ve had, I don’t think you need one.”

He took a few tentative steps into the cluster of headstones, wending his way to a destination he apparently already had in mind, and Victor carefully picked his way along with him.

“Yuuri,” he tried again, “why are we here?”

Yuuri stopped, looking down at one of the shortest stones as though verifying the name carved onto it.

“Because,” he said, “I thought it was time you met someone.”

This gravestone had only a single name carved onto it, a squat urn set before it. It looked comparatively untended compared to the others, with lichen spreading across one side and no fresh flowers decorating it. Yuuri sat in front of it, pulling his knees to his chest, and after a moment’s hesitation, Victor copied him.

“Is this a metaphor?” he couldn’t help but ask. “Are you the ghost of Christmas future?”

Yuuri laughed, seemingly in spite of himself.

“No,” he said after a considerate pause. “No, this is… me. Sort of.” He shifted anxiously on the ground, and Victor stayed silent, waiting. “My first big job, I got in too deep. There was this… girl, that I knew growing up. Her family had a lot more money than mine. We grew up, started getting closer…” He hunched over, seeming like he was trying to disappear into himself. “Her parents wanted us to get married. It was about then I realized that my only chance to get away with the money was if I…” He took a deep breath. “If I faked my death. So.” He gestured down at the gravestone.

He fell silent again. Victor sat still, digesting the story.

“How old were you?” he finally asked.

“Sixteen,” Yuuri said with a sigh. “I thought I buried him, here in Karatsu, but… I kept running, and I kept _hurting_ , and he was still there. Reminding me of all my mistakes, of all the ways I’m fucked up.” He drew a shuddering breath. “Yuuko was far from the only person I hurt. I made so many good people trust me by pretending to be a good person, and then I’d turn around and stab them in the back, take their money or their art or… or anything else I could get my hands on. _Good_ people, Victor. People that didn’t deserve any of it. I— he— made a fucking _career_ out of that. And I didn’t know how to make it stop.”

“Yuuri…” Victor murmured, unsure of what to say. Yuuri’s knees were tucked tightly to his chest, his face half-buried behind them.

“You wouldn’t have liked who I was before I met you,” he said, looking at the headstone. “So I thought it was easier if you never knew the whole truth.”

Victor tried to digest this.

“Yuuri,” he said again. “I didn’t really like who _I_ was before I met you. That’s hardly a fair metric.” Yuuri made a miserable sound, burying his face behind his knees. But it was true, the truest thing Victor knew how to say. Life before meeting Yuuri — before _really_ knowing him, rather than pursuing a phantom across half the world — was so… flat, compared to what it was now. Sure, it was more dangerous now, and he ran a slightly higher risk of being arrested or killed; but when he’d worked in insurance investigation, he’d spent years drifting from one case to the next, feeling disconnected from anything real. Yuuri had been the first thing in so many years to break through the walls Victor had built around himself.

Victor scooted a little closer, putting his good arm around Yuuri’s shoulders, holding him close for a moment.

“Why are you bringing me here now?” he asked, keeping his voice as light as he could.

Yuuri huffed out a laugh, raking his hand through his hair.

“I don’t know. I spent a long time on the other side of the world from this place. Sometimes I think part of what makes me so good at conning people is that it gives me a chance to be something other than the anxious mess who makes everything worse for people.”

“That’s not—"

“I know that’s not how you see me,” Yuuri interrupted, seeming almost impatient. “But running, escaping… it’s what I’m good at. When we met — Barcelona — I thought at first that… that being with you, it was another way to run from who I really was. But…” He glanced at the headstone. “But I think that now, that man’s finally dead. I can finally move on.”

Victor tried to digest this.

“What happened to him?” he asked, nodding at the headstone.

Yuuri turned to him, offering a small, sweet smile. God, Victor felt himself falling in love all over again with that smile, the love shining in those eyes. He saw for the first time that Yuuri’s eyes had flecks of lighter brown in them, almost gold in the darkness, and he basked in them.”

“You killed him,” Yuuri said. “And not just with your… your Robin Hood crusade. You’re the most _good_ man I’ve ever met, Victor. The first person in my life I’ve ever wanted to hold onto.”

“I used to award millions of dollars to billionaires,” Victor protested, feeling his cheeks color as he was faced with the depth of Yuuri’s love and regard for him in a way he’d never been before.

“Yeah.” Yuuri grinned at him. “And now you steal it all back.”

He reached out to brush Victor’s bangs out of his eyes, and Victor found himself leaning into the touch, eager to soak up every inch of Yuuri even though he’d just spent the last several days at Victor’s bedside, tending to his every need. He never would have thought, when beginning this relationship with Yuuri, that they could end up with something so… so solid, so secure. What had begun as fascination had turned into something ephemeral, impermanent, meetings every couple of months in hotel rooms in cities they’d never visit again. And even when Yuuri had put a ring on his finger, it had almost been like making a wish they’d known could never come true.

Their love had been a fantasy then, Victor knew now. It had nothing on the reality of sitting here, at Yuuri’s side, putting their past to rest so they could finally build a future together.

“Victor?” Yuuri spoke hesitantly, his eyes shifting to one side. “Maybe you’ve figured this out, but… I’ve never lied to you. Not big lies, anyway. I did take your sandwich out of the fridge that one time.”

“I know,” Victor said, corner of his mouth twitching upward. Yuuri grinned back.

“You’ve always made me want to be better,” Yuuri said. “That’s… that’s who ‘Yuuri’ is. Yuuri is the person you make me wish I was. No… He’s who I am now because of you. And I didn’t want you to think of me as—“

Victor cut off his words with a kiss, pulling him closer as best he was able with only one good arm. Yuuri melted into him after a moment, thumbs brushing over Victor’s cheeks, his hands almost reverent as he touched Victor. He could tell Yuuri was being careful in light of his injuries, but all Victor wanted at that moment was to hold Yuuri, and remind him that the only person he needed to be for Victor was himself.

“You could have just said that,” Victor said, nuzzling Yuuri’s nose with his own. “You didn’t have to keep torturing me.”

He felt Yuuri smile, a bitter sob escaping his lips. “I couldn’t,” he all but whispered. “If you’d ever looked at me, knowing who I used to be? I wouldn’t have been able to bear it. But then I almost lost you anyway and…”

“Shh,” Victor said, tilting his head to press a slow, tender kiss to Yuuri’s lips. “No more secrets,” he murmured when they pulled apart.

“No,” Yuuri agreed, fingers resting on the side of Victor’s neck. “This was the last one.”

They got up a few minutes later, Yuuri carefully helping Victor to his feet as they dusted themselves off. “So,” Yuuri said, offering his arm to Victor for balance, “I’d prefer that you don’t use _his_ name when you talk to me. I’m still just Yuuri.”

Victor stayed silent for a moment.

“Yuuri,” he finally said. “I don’t even know what name was on the headstone.”

Yuuri turned to him, confused. “What?”

“I can’t read kanji,” Victor sighed. Yuuri gaped for a moment before he started to laugh.

“Shit,” he giggled. “I can’t believe I forgot.”

He was so, so beautiful when he laughed like that.

“Don’t worry about it,” Victor said as they started their descent down the hill, Makkachin trailing behind him. “After all, it doesn’t really matter.”

They left the cemetery behind them, walking arm in arm toward their future.

**Author's Note:**

> who's ready for some FOOTNOTES
> 
> \- So this title. Apparently I've decided that all fics in this verse are going to have some weird title that sounds like it could be the name of a con. Westchester County, NY, is the place Frank Abagnale was born (famous con artist whose life inspired the movie _Catch Me If You Can_ ). "Samba" plays into the dance naming theme I kind of have going on.  
> \- Phichit and Yuuri have worked at least one job together in the past. I like to think that knowing a hacker like Phichit is how Yuuri was able to know Victor's comings and goings so he could then pre-arrange to steal the things he was insuring. You know! Like flirting!  
> \- hitter Otabek is my everything. I love and trust him.  
> \- The Thai phrase Phichit tosses out is, as I understand, the equivalent of "Holy shit!" I found it on an online Thai dictionary, and it's transliterated, of course, but if it seems dodgy please let me know!  
> \- the scene with Victor and the book of baby names was the first image that popped into my head when I got this idea. HOW DID THE REST HAPPEN. we just don't know.  
> \- Neurolinguistic programming is something I don't know a whole lot about, but it's basically a way to subtly manipulate people into doing what you want by inserting certain buzzwords into conversation. Only a master grifter like Yuuri would be able to pick up on it, and of course he's furious because Victor was using it against Phichit (only to build his confidence but WOW Vic be less sketchy??). He never does it to any of the team members again.  
> \- "Hideyoshi Nagachika" is, of course, a character from Tokyo Ghoul. I haven't watched it, but he has the same seiyuu as Yuuri, so like. There's a fun inside joke that y'all are now privy to.  
> \- For anyone interested (since the characters make reference to Taipei in [The Triple Lutz Job](http://archiveofourown.org/works/10729104/chapters/23776581)), this is probably all the depth I'm going to go into re: what happened in Taipei. Hey, it was going to be a very scary noodle incident. Instead, have Victor bleeding half to death in the hold of an airplane while Yuuri flies to the other side of the world. You're... you're welcome?  
> \- also I swear I love Chris! It's just convenient for me to put him into the de facto antagonist role. He and Victor get along great other than the "I'm always trying to arrest your fiance and all your friends and also you" thing. Lawful neutral vs. chaotic good, man. Whatcha gonna do.  
> \- Yurio can afford to buy an entire hot spring because he's been a thief since he was ten and all of them are completely and utterly loaded, thanks to all the money they steal from corrupt CEOs.  
> \- Yuuri's "real name" is also something I'm never going to address because, as they said, it doesn't matter. His backstory is obviously a lot different than it is in the series, but it was fun trying to find references to Yuuko and Hiroko and Toshiya. "Katsuki" is also Yuuri's surname in this verse, which he adopts from their new safehouse.  
> \- Finally, an obligatory Leverage plug, because that's what this verse is based on even if I'm kind of warping both it and YOI so this series is its own thing. Leverage is on Netflix if you're in the US. It is the most incredible fun show about impressive heists, millennial wish fulfillment, and broken people making a family together. 
> 
> I'm [phoenixrei](http://phoenixrei.tumblr.com) on Tumblr, come hang out!!


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